


magic seeps into our bones (and to the earth it returns)

by the-dreaming-hare (iexisttolive)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Challenge Response, Malfoy Family, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-18 17:51:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7324795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iexisttolive/pseuds/the-dreaming-hare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of oneshots written various challenges and competitions over at HPFC. They're not connected to each other except where specifically indicated.</p><p>One: Draco is spared Azkaban when Potter unearths a surprising Malfoy family legacy.<br/>Two: Hermione learns that some books are better left alone.<br/>Three: Hermione seeks out her family.<br/>Four: Helga and Rowena meet for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Healing

The Malfoy family had been known for their Dark ways for years. What many didn’t take into account was just how long one Wizarding generation lasted. While Lucius had followed the Dark Lord under the initial orders of his father, Abraxas, it seemed that even he was not aware of the legacy left to them by his grandfather, Ophiuchus.

Malfoys were Healers.

It was all Draco could do not to laugh during his Wizengamot trial, when Potter of all people testified as a witness for him and imparted that delightful piece of knowledge. It became harder when he glanced into the audience and saw Granger there on the edge of her seat, eager as ever to absorb new information.

He stared at the ceiling above him as Potter explained that the Malfoy family had an innate power when it came to Healing, a sense of the body and a connectedness to magic that allowed them to create breakthroughs where before there had been only death. Malfoys had created the vaccines for Spattergroit and Scrofungulus, among others, he said. Deep within their line was the potential for Parseltongue, which they had used to heal with even more astonishing results.

“What if this potential lies within Draco? What will he be able to do?”

What indeed.

And that’s how Draco found himself apprenticing at St Mungo’s. A strange court order to be sure, but he knew that he was being watched and evaluated constantly. One toe out of line and he’d be in Azkaban faster than he could blink.

So it was ridiculous to keep coming here. Foolish, even.

As he strode down the stark hall of the Janus Thickey Ward he found that he really couldn’t bring himself to care.

He entered the room silently, and made himself comfortable at Alice Longbottom’s bedside. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, staring at the opposite wall in immense concentration.

“Hello, Alice.”

She didn’t respond, though Draco hadn’t expected her to. Few people in his generation knew that Alice Longbottom was born a Fortescue. Even fewer still knew that her mother had been born a Malfoy. From a cadet branch of the family, to be sure. But still. They were blood.

And perhaps their blood would make progress possible.

“Alice,” Draco spoke once more. Her eyebrows furrowed in deeper concentration.

Draco gently took her hand, and _felt_. A sense of static filled him as he probed her magic with his own as he’d been slowly learning to do. For hours he sat at her bedside, feeling and nudging things here and there.

When he withdrew, Alice looked at him in silence. Her grey eyes focused on his.

“Hello, Alice.”

He waited in silence. Five minutes passed. Ten.

He sighed in frustration and rose to leave. A thin, reedy whisper stopped him.

“Hel-lo?”


	2. In Absentia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tw for horror/gore.

It was with trepidation that Hermione had returned to Hogwarts for her missed Seventh Year.

She moved through classes in a trance, regularly visiting the library simply to inhale the scent that comforted her.

It was on a particularly unsettling evening that Hermione found herself in the Restricted Section, eyes clouded as she tried to un-see the memories of bodies laid out in the Great Hall. Seventh Years were granted permission to access the section, but she simply needed a distraction. Meals were sometimes too difficult to struggle through.

It was in on the shelf of self-transfiguration that she saw a book that seemed out of place. Unlike those bordering it, this book's spine was written in a system of runes. Though they weren't Norse, or any other glyphs that she recognized, Hermione knew that the restricted runic array books were shelved near the back of the section.

Intent now on returning the title to its correct place, Hermione delicately pulled it from the shelf.

As soon as it was free, the book began to glow with a vibrant blue light that reflected upon her dark eyes and skin. It was faint at first, but as Hermione walked towards the back of the section she noticed with alarm that the light was becoming brighter. It began to pulse slowly, then quickened – and she realized with horror that it was in tune with her heartbeat.

She released the book and stared in shock when it stuck to her hand. She tried in vain to dislodge it, and began to hyperventilate as she realized she was unable to scream. The book was now almost blinding in its intensity, and Hermione fled towards the entrance to the Restricted Section, colliding with another student in her haste.

She fell to the ground, eyes wide with unshed tears, book extended before her. Her head was swimming, vision blurring as she saw the other student take in her predicament. Malfoy's face was unmistakeable, even as she struggled to focus on him. He stared at her, grey eyes wide as they took in the book attached to her. He spoke, but she heard nothing.

Her brown skin was glowing with an otherworldly light, her dark eyes shimmering as the whites disappeared. Malfoy backed up quickly but there was no escape. She was already standing behind him, the hand that had held the book extended. Dark glyphs shone there, burned into her skin.

"Granger, please," he whispered, raising his wand.

"There is no Granger," she replied. It was a voice of epic multitudes, and he couldn't help but scream as it grated upon his ears.

Her raised hand came to rest upon his brow, and she held him in place with an impossible force. The dark glyphs from her hand burned themselves into his skin. She smiled as he screamed, her teeth black with blood. She stepped back from him, and spoke.

"There is no escape – we pay for the violence of our ancestors."

His blood boiled as she laughed, skin slowly splitting and burning away. The glyphs shone on his brow as they did their work. Blood slowly seeped from his eyes and nose as his body collapsed, his magic unable to heal the terrible wounds that she had inflicted.

Hermione's laughs turned to screams as the light faded from her skin. Her eyes regained their whites and she saw what unspeakable acts her body had been used to accomplish.

It was there that she was found, staring unseeing at the books she had so loved.

It was there that a slim volume with glyphs on the spine quietly reshelved itself to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Pixel Dungeon Competition, Depth 2. I had to write a horror oneshot, and I think this fits the bill!
> 
> Also written for Sophie's Bookshop Challenge. Sci-Fi #3: Dune. 
> 
> Prompts used: (plot theme) discovering an ancient book in an untranslated language, (word) epic, (dialogue) "There is no escape- we pay for the violence of our ancestors."


	3. Blood Ties

Hermione Granger had always known she was adopted. It had helped, when she was young. Vibrant and bossy, and shunned by her year-mates, she always hoped that her adoption was the cause. To her eyes it perhaps helped to explain her strangeness.

She could never help the tiny thought that kept niggling in the back of her mind: perhaps she was always meant to be elsewhere.

When Professor McGonagall had come to her door and turned her life on its head, everything suddenly made sense. Of course she was strange! She was a witch.

And then she came to Hogwarts and learned that perhaps magic wasn’t the cause of her strangeness after all. So determined to do her best, she let nothing stop her. Whispers of ‘teacher’s pet’ and ‘horridly bossy’ became routine and she strode past without a care. She found friends to love and held onto them fiercely.

The first time she was called a Mudblood, she really wondered if it were true. Did the unknown people who had left her at an orphanage have magic coursing through their blood? Had she been denied a childhood of praised accidental magic? Of friends who were truly her peers?

Either way, Hermione decided that by virtue of the parents that raised her, she would be a Mudblood and proud.

When the war was over and her parents’ memories restored, they were horrified to discover what she had done. She had taken away their choice, violated their free will, and they could not forgive her for it. It was after they disowned her that she found herself at Grimmauld Place. Harry had been kind enough to let her stay there while she tried to get her life in order.

She often found herself shuffling around the Black library aimlessly, casting dirty looks at books that had attempted to bite her in the past. Events in her life had moved past dysfunctional into desperate, and she had decided to do something she once swore she wouldn’t: discover the identity of her birth parents.

It wasn’t difficult to find a ritual in the library that did exactly that. Nor was it surprising that it was classified very clearly as ‘dark’. Hermione didn’t have much experience with rituals, as they often involved either warding or family magics. But she was more than willing to try, to discover not only her birth parents, but her entire family tree.  

That was how she found herself in the Grimmauld ritual room, uncomfortably skyclad as other magic pulsed around her like a living entity. She had with her a simple transfigured athame, a six-foot scroll of parchment, and her wand. She locked the door from the inside, not willing to risk the look on Harry’s face if he caught her.

She chanted, she bled, she channelled as much magic as she dared. Finally, after hours, she left the room with her scroll in hand. After healing her cuts, Hermione sat at her desk and unrolled the scroll with shaky hands and froze in utter horror.

There, in a beautiful calligraphy of her own blood, were the names of her true parents.

Bellatrix Druella Lestrange née Black & Rodolphus Perseus Lestrange.

Bellatrix was long dead at Molly’s hand. And Rodolphus was in Azkaban for life.

Her mother had laughed as she tortured her.

She had fought for Harry as her parents roared around in the masks of monsters.

Hermione traced her family tree and found familiar names. The Malfoys, the Rosiers, the Flints.

She lay her head down on her desk and wept.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pureblood!Hermione is a guilty pleasure of mine, especially when she's born to a darker family.
> 
> This was written for Sophie's Bookshop Challenge, prompts: (word) dysfunctional, (plot) one parent is locked away in prison/hospital/institution, (quote/dialogue) "Her parents roared around in the masks of monsters."
> 
> Also written for The Pixel Dungeon Competition, which limited my word count to 600 max. Otherwise this would be super long.


	4. A Founder's Finding

Helga knew that she used to have words just as surely as she knew the sun would rise in the morning. It was a fact of life that most peasants never knew the meaning of their words, and had to spend their lives wondering if they had paired with the wrong person. But Helga hadn’t always been a peasant. Once, before her accident, and the deaths of her parents, she had been a Lady. Her words had wrapped around her right wrist in a beautiful blue calligraphy that read _I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there._

As a child, her mother had laughed and wondered how anyone could overlook her beautiful daughter.

Her parents had died not long after that day, wasting away from an illness no magic could cure. It was only a few months later that she had been thrown from a horse, the bones below her right elbow crushed. While magic may have fixed it, she was rendered unconscious by the blow. A muggle doctor had witnessed the event and had taken it upon himself to amputate from the elbow to save her the pain of a mangled limb.

Her screams upon waking to discover her missing limb had been magically amplified and heard for an unbelievably vast distance.

When her remaining family discovered her new disability, they were quick to turn her out on the street. In their eyes she was no longer suitable for any marriage that would bring about an advantageous alliance.

Left with only a small sum of coins and some skill at cooking, Helga set out to make her way in the world. It was much harder than she thought. She spent a great deal of time unable to use her magic for fear of being caught, and she struggled to cook the muggle way.

Eventually, she left the country of her birth to travel north. She had heard whispers of strange things happening, and hoped to find a magical community.

She was passing through an unremarkable little town one when it happened. The streets weren’t particularly busy, but a woman walked into her all the same. The woman held a book in one hand, and spoke absently after colliding with her.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

She continued on her way without even looking up. Helga stared after her in shock. Her long dark hair was caught up in an elaborate hairstyle, and she was exceedingly tall for a woman. She appeared to glide on without a care in the world.

Helga finally got a hold on herself and hurried after the woman. Catching up to her, Helga caught her around the elbow to stop her. Jarred out of her book, the woman looked up at her with the darkest blue eyes she had ever seen, and a frown.

“Can I help you, madam?”

“My name is Helga,” she said simply.

The woman dropped her book in shock, replying automatically.

“I’m Rowena.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of soulmarks, is of course that of amusewithaview's 'write love on my skin'.
> 
> I've always wanted to do a soulmark fic but never really got around to it until now.
> 
> This was written for Pirate Battles #111 Helga Hufflepuff/Rowena Ravenclaw


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